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Friday, October 22, 2010

There’s always the dilemma when watching a movie in the cinemas. First, there’s the want of people to go with and at the same time, the silence at the right moments in the movie. You can never get both. If you take people with you, there’s always going to be a dialogue or two that you missed because your friend sitting next to you uttered something that you, now, don’t even remember. What do you do in these situations? Well, here’s an advice to enjoy the movie, and also have loads of fun with your company.

First, choose a movie that you know is going to be boring. Yes. BORING! Your enjoyment level is inversely proportional to the quality of the plot. The worse the plot, the more you’ll enjoy it. Next, choose friends who like crowds and make a lot of noise. The more shameless ones, the better.

And lastly, if you aren’t paying for the tickets, Super! You’ve got your concoction for a great day out at the cinema.

At this point, you might think that I have gone insane, but give me a chance to reason myself out.

First of all, let me lay out my credentials for giving movie watching advice, especially this kind. This advice/suggestion is based on my experience last week watching the movie “Crook” in a multiplex.

Perhaps many of you have already figured where I’m coming from.

Yes, I watched “Crook”. A movie, from what I’ve heard begs to obtain the same kind of review that “Dabangg” did. What? you ask? The review read something like this: “Dabangg is so ridiculous, so stupid, so pathetic that it is actually good!”. Yes, that’s what it read.

I haven’t watched Dabangg. Who in the right mind would after reading such a review? So, I can’t comment on that but this line would apply very well to “Crook”. Good that it was a company sponsored ticket.

Here’s where I would’ve said “I want 2 1/2 hours of my life back” but surprisingly, (yes it is surprising to myself) on the contrary, I really enjoyed the time. How you ask?

Here’s how:

First, my company of colleagues all understood the language of the movie, Hindi in this case - A key ingredient for having a good time. How is that a matter, you ask? Well, you’d be surprised how often people go to the movies without even knowing the language and then complain that the movie was bad.

Second, the movie, to its credit had very good music. Being the crazy fanatics that we are, we enjoyed the music like the Low Class Locals without bothering even a little bit that it was a multiplex. After all, what’s the point of sitting silently in an Air conditioned cinema after paying such a high ticket price and not enjoy the movie thoroughly, however crappy it may be.

However clichéd it may be, I’m still going to say – last but definitely not the least, the movie’s plot itself which is what I want to talk about the most but I don’t want to kill the fun for those who haven’t experienced it.

So, a few scenes only:

The plot is about a guy who is a crook in Bombay (Emraan Hashmi) being sent to down under – Australia after his identity being forged by his God father (Gulshan Grover) who is a Police officer. Yes! can you imagine it? Gulshan Grover plays a good man in this movie which absolutely doesn’t suit him. After Hashmi lands in OZ, meets a fat guy from Gurdaspur who’s there to study in a college on scholarship. For some reason, Hashmi always refers to the fat guy’s town as Hoshiyarpur and the fat guy corrects him every single time. This goes on throughout the movie and once Hashmi actually says it correctly but the fat guy, out of force of habit, trying to correct him, says “Hoshiyarpur”. OK, that was one of the funny scenes so sorry for spoiling the fun.

The plot starts with Hashmi falling for an Indian girl who had come to pick up the fat guy from Hoshiyarpur but actually picks up Emraan Hashmi instead as he impersonates the fat guy.

Hashmi gets a job as a taxi driver from a Punjabi gang who provide refuge to illegal Indian immigrants and finds them jobs. The funniest bit is that after every sentence that anyone in the gang utters, they all one-by-one say “Fact Hai!”.

Many such small nuances make the movie watchable without which the already crappy movie would’ve just been pathetic.

The plot thickens with the flash-back of the heroine’s brother killing his other sister while trying to abort her pregnancy at a very late stage after finding out that the father of the baby was an Australian.

At the same time there’s the outbreak of Indians getting beaten up by Australians for being of a different colour. I thought this bit was over-exaggerated. They show the fat guy getting beaten up in hospital and the doctor explaining his condition to Emraan Hashmi and the heroine.

For some reason, the whole movie though claiming to be set in OZ, always has American accent spoken by the white people. The worst part was when the Doctor informs about the condition of the heroine’s brother who was attacked by Australians. The Accent is a strong Texan. Throughout the movie, I didn’t notice a single white man/woman speaking the frickking Australian accent.

The climax, which was the culmination of all the emotional drama of the entire movie and supposed to be the most serious turned out to be the funniest scene in the movie.

The Brother of the heroine is disillusioned that his sister was killed not by him trying to abort the baby but by the Australian who got her pregnant. There are such blatant logic FAILS in the movie which makes it watchable because that’s what made it funny.

The brother then kidnaps the Australian man’s sister and tries to kill her the same way his sister had dies – On the table, in order to take revenge. This is the climax scene in which the fat guy is made to dig a grave for her while the brother prepares for the murder. As expected, the hero arrives on time and explains the truth and tries to reason with the brother but he doesn’t understand. The fat guy, in the meanwhile listening to Emraan’s speech gets enlightened and revolts against the brother who keeps ordering him to continue to dig. The fat guy finally loses it and kills the brother with the shovel that he was using to dig.

The kidnapped Australian girl is rescued and the story ends there.

Note: Pay attention to the small dialogues in which lies a little bit of entertainment in the form of it being so pathetic that it is actually funny.

Wow! I am amazed, I could write so much about such a crappy movie. In one line, a lot of good talent Emraan Hashmi, Neha Sharma (perhaps it’s just me but she looks strikingly similar to Angelina Jolie), the Punjabi gang, the fat guy, the brother – all wasted colossally in this movie.

If you are getting a free ticket and some noisy comment-passing, extrovert friends, go watch this movie. Otherwise, don’t even bother.

So, now you know how to enjoy a day-out at the movies by hook or “Crook”.